Dantrielle, Aneira

“Play another, lad!” one of the men called to him, drawing shouts of agreement from the others. “Do you know ‘Tanith’s Threnody’?”

Dario shook his head, though he continued to look down at his fingers as he plucked idly at the strings of his lute. “No,” he said. “Never learned it.”

It was a lie, of course. Every lutenist in Aneira knew the threnody, because it was all anyone ever asked them to play. He had already played it this day, and he heard snickers in the far corner of the tavern, probably from someone who had heard him perform it earlier.

“Then play anything,” the man said.

Dario’s fingers throbbed-he had been playing since just after the ringing of the midday bells. They were barely paying him enough to make eight or nine songs worth his while, and he had already done more than a dozen. The tavern shouldn’t have even been open. For one thing, this was the day of Bohdan’s Night, when men should have been with their families rather than drinking at a bar. Most of the men who frequented the Red Boar, however, had no families. More to the point though, with the king dead, every other tavern in the city had been shut down. The duke’s guards never came to the Red Boar, however. They were afraid to. So it remained open, as if nothing had happened, as if it were just an ordinary day in Dantrielle.

One of the serving women put another ale before him and gave him a warm smile.

“They like you,” she whispered.

“Another song or two and my fingers will be bloody.”

She glanced around the tavern and nodded toward the men who crowded the tables and bar. “If you stop now, they’re liable to bloody a good deal more than your fingers.”

She had a point. It was never a good idea for a musician to anger a tavernful of listeners, and this was particularly true in the Red Boar.

“One more,” he said. “And then I need to drink my ale.”

“Fair enough,” another man said. “The lad deserves a bit of rest.”

The others nodded, and Dario began to play. It was one of his own pieces, as the last several had been. He had made up so many that he stopped titling them long ago. But he still remembered where he found each one, and in his own mind he called them by those names. This one was “Moors of Durril,” where he had been early in the last harvest when he first played it.

Each element of the piece was fairly simple-the melody line he plucked from the upper strings, and the bass counterpoint he played on the lower ones. But together they created an intricate pattern that recalled for Dario the grasses of the moor, dancing in a light wind, and the brilliant sunset Morna had offered him that evening. The melody turned three rounds in the piece, each a bit lower in pitch and slower in tempo than the last, before the delicate ending climbed upward once more. It was Dario’s best, and he always saved it for the end of a performance.

Despite their rough appearance and cruel reputations, the men of the Red Boar appreciated good music. They cheered lustily when he finished, and several of them offered to buy him ales, though he had barely touched the one he carried, along with his lute, to the rear of the tavern.

“Fine playing, lad!” the first man said, clapping him on the back as Dario walked past. “You can play for me anytime.”

Dario smiled and nodded, but he didn’t stop to talk. He might have been a musician, but he also had a profession, just as they did, and he had been living on a lutenist’s wage for too long.

He took his customary seat near one of the back windows and laid the lute carefully on the chair beside him. After taking a long drink of ale, he pulled his father’s old pipe from his pocket, filled the bowl with Trescam leaf, and lit it. He leaned back in his chair, blowing a great cloud of smoke toward the ceiling and closing his eyes.

He remained that way for some time, only opening his eyes again when he heard the chair across the table from him squeak.

A man was sitting there, one Dario had seen in the Red Boar before.

Like so many of the others, he had the look of a road brigand to him. He hadn’t shaved in several days, and he wore his black hair long and untied. He was built like Dano, neither brawny nor tall, but lean and muscular, like a festival tumbler. Even though they were both sitting, the lutenist could tell that the man could handle himself in a fight.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Dario asked him, puffing on his pipe again.

The man stared at him with dark eyes, a small smile on his thin lips. “Crebin sent me to tell you that he wants his gold, and that he’s tired of waiting.”

Dario frowned. “I think you have the wrong man. I don’t know anyone named Crebin.‘

“He also told me that you’d say that. We’ve all enjoyed your playing, lad. None of us wants to see you floating facedown in the Rassor with a blade in your back.”

“Well, I’m glad to know that we’re in agreement on that point,” Dario said, eyeing the man as he would a new instrument. He had never seen the man fight, so he didn’t know his tendencies or his weaknesses. Dario was near the back of the inn, but he wasn’t against the back wall. If he moved fast enough, he could stand and kick away his chair, clearing himself some room to draw his dagger and meet an assault. He opened his hands, as if to show the man that he held no weapon. “There’s obviously been some misunderstanding, but I’m sure that you and I can work it out. Perhaps you can start by telling me what this Crebin looks like.”

“Don’t try my patience, boy. You may think you can handle yourself in a fight, but you’ve never fought me.”

“You know, I’m tired of people calling me lad and boy all the time,” Dario said, his hand snaking down toward his calf, where he held his spare blade. “I’m seven years past my Fating, and still everyone treats me like I’m little more than a child.” He cocked his head to the side, just as the fingers on his throwing hand unfastened the strap that held the blade in place and closed around the smooth wooden hilt. “Recently I’ve thought of letting my beard grow in. Do you think that would help?”

“I think you should stop what it is you’re doing, before you get yourself hurt.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

The man looked past him for just an instant, and too late Dario realized that there was a second man behind him. Before he could do anything with his own blade, he felt the point of another weapon pressing against the back of his neck.

“Bring your hand up slowly,” the second man commanded. “And lay the blade on the table.”

Dario did as he was told, cursing himself for his carelessness.

“And the other one.”

He pulled his better blade from his belt, and placed it on the table beside the other.

“Now, let’s try this again,” said the man sitting before him. “Where’s Crebin’sgold?”

“I tell you, I don’t know anyone named Crebin. Nor do I have any gold to speak of. Do you think I’d still be playing here if I did?”

The man shook his head slowly. “You’re a fool. Men like Crebin aren’t to be trifled with. Nor are we.”

He nodded once to his friend, who grabbed Dario by the hair and pulled him to his feet, all the while keeping the tip of his dagger firmly against the lutenist’s nape.

“Say there!” came a voice from the front of the tavern. “What are you doing with the lad?”

Several of the older men in the tavern came toward them, led by the man who had patted Dario’s back earlier.

The man holding Dario shifted his blade so that its edge pressed against Dario’s throat.

“Stay out of this, old man,” the bearded one warned. “The boy stole gold from a man who doesn’t take such things lightly. If he pays us what’s owed, he’ll be back to play for you again. If not…” He shrugged. “But if you get in our way, I swear to you, we’ll kill him where he stands.”